Welcome to the October issue! The ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize is now firmly established as one of Australia’s most prestigious and lucrative short story competitions. 1200 people entered this year. Our judges have whittled them down to a shortlist of three stories, and we publish them in the new issue. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Sydney on 28 October. Otherwise, it’s a peak season for new fiction, and several major new novels are reviewed – Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (James Ley), Alex Miller’s Coal Creek (Brian Matthews), Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam, and Roger McDonald’s The Following. In our Theatre column, Ben Eltham finds little to like in David Williamson’s new play, Rupert.

Michael Fullilove, head of the Lowy Institute, has written about President Roosevelt and the men who helped him to guide the US so reluctantly into World War II. Dennis Altman reviews this model of academic research.< More